Linda Babcock

The studies presented in this book are eye opening, and I consider myself an informed feminist. I referenced a few when my fellow engineering graduate students were getting job offers, even my male friends needed some support negotiating.

Nevertheless, the organization of this book is awful. There are anecdotes mixed in with studies, and topics of studies and anecdotes are intermingled. At pg 54, I nearly sprang out of my chair grasping back to pg 42 to compare two studies. The two studies describe pay expectations and requests by men and women given the same job. In the first, men and women are given salary ranges and jobs. Given this information, women still expected 3-32% lower wages. In the second study, men and women are assigned a task and paid whatever they ask. Given lists of wages requested by others, the difference in wages requested disappears. The two studies conflict! There is something about the conditions here. The two studies are 12 pages apart, albeit the same chapter, yet the authors seem to have forgotten their earlier example, perhaps because the inserted a section on the valuation of child-care. They instead conclude: "gender differences disappear when men and women receive information about the going rates for different jobs." I believe that conclusion is well supported, but what happened in the study on page 42!!! Did they not have avgs?? Come on, it's chapter one!… (mehr)